The Nature Conservancy Protects Land for the Public
By Javier Serna, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Jan. 10–SCOTLAND NECK — Standing deep among the box elder, oak, cypress, magnolia, ash and sycamore trees in the Roanoke River’s flood plain, Merrill Lynch reached for a fruit that looked like a short, green banana from a young, bushy tree. He took a bite.
"Pawpaw," said Lynch, spitting out seeds the diameter of nickels. "It’s not ripe yet. But the deer love this stuff."
The man was standing on land, owned for years by the International Paper Co., that is special for more than just trees and deer: It’s also a place where other big-game animals such as wild turkeys and black bears roam.
And that’s why The Nature Conservancy, a worldwide conservation organization, recently jumped at the chance to buy the tract. It’s a piece of 76,500 acres of land scattered along the state’s Coastal Plain that the paper company decided to unload last year.
The organization’s purchase, under a land swap arrangement with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, will turn about 65,000 of those acres into protected areas — parcels now added to the state’s game lands program along the Roanoke, Chowan and Tar rivers, as well as Juniper Creek.
Though many hunters praise The Nature Conservancy for making it possible for the state to acquire the land, other hunters have offered mixed reactions. Members of dozens of hunt clubs, for example, have lost exclusive rights to land they held for years. For them, it’s heartbreaking.
"We get lumped in [with tree-huggers]," said Lynch, assistant director of protection for the conservancy’s North Carolina chapter. "But most hunt clubs understand we’re not anti-hunting."
The Nature Conservancy has a long history of protecting lands in North Carolina.
Since 1977, the conservancy has bought and sealed off from future development more than 700,000 acres, mostly in eastern part of the state, but also in the mountains.
In the late 1970s, leaders in the state chapter decided to focus on protecting prime land in the coastal plains and the mountains.
"As we evolved, we understood the ecological richness of the mountains and the coastal plains," said Katherine Skinner, executive director of the conservancy.
"We identified where the critical areas were," Lynch said.
The group is funded by donations from private individuals as well as corporations, foundations and other organizations and federal and state grants and funds.
"It’s evolved," said Skinner. "Twenty years ago, you didn’t have the state money you’ve got now. But as we’ve worked with the state, we’ve built up momentum and people see the results of what they need in the community."
It’s how the conservancy was able to come up with the $80 million needed to buy the land from International Paper.
One of the conservancy’s first breaks was along the Roanoke River in 1982, when it acquired its first 200 acres. Now the conservancy has protected about 481,100 acres in the state’s Coastal Plain.
The conservancy’s impact was apparent as Lynch led the way recently onto a 1,422-acre parcel from an entrance north of the Roanoke River, on the east side of U.S. 258, near Scotland Neck, about 70 miles east of Raleigh.
The property was transferred to the state in late June in the first of a series of phases. The first phase in June added 30,309 acres to the state’s game lands. Another 27,000 acres were added in December. The final 8,000 acres will be transferred in the spring.
"They’ve already changed the locks," said Lynch, as he climbed over the gate designed to keep out cars and trucks.
As he followed a trail toward the river, he pointed south and then west. The land is surrounded by two tracts the conservancy previously helped the state acquire.
Buying time
The conservancy’s role in land acquisition works like this: Land goes on the market. If the organization would like to protect the land and a governmental agency wants the land, the conservancy pools its resources and attempts to make the purchase.
That gives governmental agencies time to come up with money, often in the form of federal and state grants. So the conservancy holds the land until the grant monies are available.
In this case, much of the land already was identified by the N.C. Natural Heritage Program as being ecologically diverse.
Skinner, who has headed the conservancy since 1986, said protection can include private landowners who grant conservation easements while keeping the land. For example, about 11,000 acres in the International Paper deal won’t be converted to game lands. Roughly 1,500 acres of the property were added to Medoc Mountain State Park near Hollister.
The conservancy also kept a small portion. The remainder is being auctioned to private landowners, though much of the land will bear conservation easements, limiting development.
Not all happy
Though the public will always have hunting access to the property, many who lost exclusive rights to the property wish the state hadn’t got its hands on the land.
A primary reason is that the land managed by the state, through the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, can’t be hunted the same way.
No longer will those hunters be able to make trails, plant food plots and ride all-terrain vehicles or set up permanent hunting stands.
"You hate to give up something you’ve worked so hard on," said J.W. Doyle of Knightdale, a member of a Halifax County hunt club that eventually will lose a piece of a land it has leased since 1975.
"When you start there and you spend all that time and effort, all of these years, you obviously are disturbed when all that work is yanked right out from under you," Doyle said.
The conservancy has continued its lease with the hunt club until the land is sold.
Like other hunters, Doyle does not like the way the state manages its public hunting grounds, namely because the no-vehicle rule means he would have to drag deer out of the woods for long distances in order to hunt the spots he has hunted for so long. Doyle also is uneasy about hunting public land because he said it can be difficult to know if other hunters are out there.
"I’m 58 years old," he said. "I have no problem with protecting things for the future — just don’t make these things into primitive land. I’m too old to be hunting land where there’s no way to get in and out."
Raleigh’s David Young, who also is about to lose his Halifax County hunting lease in the deal, doesn’t like hunting state game lands, either.
"It’s a good thing to preserve land, but on the other hand, what good is it if you can’t go in there and enjoy it the way you want?
"I don’t understand the Wildlife Resources Commission wanting to come into a county that already caters to the hunters," said Young. "I’m still baffled by it."
Support from hunters
Doyle and Young aren’t alone, but their feelings aren’t universal in the hunting community.
The state chapter of the National Wild Turkey Federation chipped in $50,000 for the latest big land purchase, and members feel strongly that it was for the greater good. It’s not the first time the federation has contributed to the conservancy’s land protection projects.
"We’re preserving it from now on," said Carl Dixon, the federation’s chapter president.
"I’m a building contractor, and I know what would have happened to that land eventually," he said. "It would have gone to development and nobody would have been able to use it for hunting."
Added Dicky Butler, a regional director for the state chapter: "It’s the future of shooting sports and hunting. That’s one of the biggest problems we have now. Kids that live in urban areas don’t have many areas to hunt. This is a land that anybody can get a permit to hunt."
Butler said he feels bad for those who lost their leases but that the land deal was the best thing that could have happened, given the circumstances.
"They’ve got to look at the alternative," said Butler. "A lot of this land was right along the rivers. After developers got in there, they’d never have a chance to hunt it again."
The work continues
Lynch was back at it on Dec. 18. He and Aaron McCall, a conservancy employee from Nags Head, launched a skiff in Coinjock and headed for Thoroughfare Island, a secluded area of perhaps 70 acres on the North River east of Elizabeth City.
It was a cold and blustery day, but the land was being donated, and Lynch needed to inspect the tract.
Lynch pointed out a young bald eagle roosted atop an ancient cypress tree. Moments later, a pileated woodpecker winged across the river. Three river otters cavorted near the shore.
He and McCall beached the skiff and slogged through thick undergrowth. Lynch took photographs while McCall entered waypoints in his Global Positioning System unit.
When asked about the ecological importance of the island, Lynch said, "There’s game lands on either side it. This island is another piece of the puzzle.
"This land needs to be protected."